1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to software installations on a computerized device and more particularly, to an automated system backup and restore during a software installation on a computerized device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In current enterprise environments, businesses typically employ a large storage area network (SAN) that is made up of several large storage servers and numerous storage devices. Each storage area network (SAN) generally includes at least one logical volume manager (LVM) that provides a mapping layer between the application programs running on, for example, a workstation computer, and the physical disks on which the network data is ultimately stored. The logical volume manager (LVM) typically has a system configuration that is large and complex.
When software on a storage device needs to be migrated or upgraded, a network system administrator generally has to manually perform several tasks that are error prone and extremely time consuming. Additionally, conventional migration/upgrade methods generally require that the storage servers be rebooted after the installation of the new software, which may disrupt all of the users and user activity on the network. When the system is rebooted, all of the application programs are shut down, even if they are not related to the software devices involved in the migration/upgrade.
FIG. 1 depicts a conventional method 100 for manually backing up and restoring a system configuration during a software installation. The method 100 begins 102 by manually backing 104 up the system configuration. This is conventionally a manual procedure performed by a system or network administrator. The administrator then manually inactivates 106 the configuration of the logical volume manager (LVM) in order to install 108 the new software on the storage device or devices. After the new software has been installed, the administrator then manually reconfigures 110 the storage devices and restores 112 the configuration of the logical volume manager (LVM). The conventional method 100 then ends 114. As discussed above, conventional software installation practices require a user to manually backup a system configuration prior to installing the new software and then manually restore the system configuration after the new software is installed.
What is needed is a process, apparatus, and system that automatically backup and restore a system configuration during the installation of new software on a software device. Beneficially, such a process, apparatus, and system would be embedded within a system packaging file so as to limit the need for human involvement in the software migration/upgrade process. The process, apparatus, and system would also beneficially avoid unnecessary human errors that result from human involvement with the complicated system configuration.